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Evidence-Based Surgery pp 23–36Cite as

Finding the Evidence Through Searching the Literature

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Abstract

When seeking answers to clinical questions, surgeons have identified a number of barriers including lack of time, challenges using the resources, volume of research available, and lack of question urgency. Developing effective and efficient search strategies is thus a critical skill. This chapter describes the core principles and skills for developing simple and complex search strategies: identifying concepts and search terms, combining concepts and terms using Boolean operators , refining searches to exclude unwanted results, and choosing an appropriate resource. The application of these principles can help surgeons overcome identified barriers to searching for the evidence .

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Health Science Library, HSC 2B, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON, Canada

    Laura Banfield, Jo-Anne Petropoulos & Neera Bhatnagar

Authors
  1. Laura Banfield
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  2. Jo-Anne Petropoulos
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  3. Neera Bhatnagar
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Laura Banfield .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Surgery, Division of Plastic Surgery, Department of Health Research Methods, Evidence and Impact (HEI), McMaster University, Hamilton, ON, Canada

    Achilles Thoma

  2. Department of Surgery, Division of Orthopaedic Surgery, Department of Health Research Methods, Evidence and Impact (HEI), McMaster University, Hamilton, ON, Canada

    Sheila Sprague

  3. Department of Surgery, Division of Plastic Surgery, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON, Canada

    Sophocles H. Voineskos

  4. Department of Health Research Methods, Evidence and Impact (HEI), McMaster University, Hamilton, ON, Canada

    Charles H. Goldsmith

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Banfield, L., Petropoulos, JA., Bhatnagar, N. (2019). Finding the Evidence Through Searching the Literature. In: Thoma, A., Sprague, S., Voineskos, S., Goldsmith, C. (eds) Evidence-Based Surgery. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-05120-4_4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-05120-4_4

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-05119-8

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-05120-4

  • eBook Packages: MedicineMedicine (R0)

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